


Nothing Ever Happens

by passionate_crimes



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Depression, Doctor Who Crossover, Episode: s04e11 Turn Left, Gen, John never meets Sherlock, Suicidal Themes, Turn Left crossover, non-slash, unless you have shipper goggles on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2017-12-15 06:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/passionate_crimes/pseuds/passionate_crimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How did you meet?" she said again, digging her nails into his palm, staring at him intently. "When was the moment that decided if you were to meet or not?"<br/>"I guess it was when I went to visit Mike in the park that one day..." John murmured.<br/>"So if you changed that time, if you never went there, you would never had met this 'Sherlock Holmes'?" she asked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work for any fandom, so there are some strange passages and ooc moments, any comments are appreciated!  
> This is also just the first chapter, the pace will pick up very soon.

John looked around the carnival. He had not been to one of these in ages, not since university at least. He walked aimlessly along the booths and soaked in the atmosphere, the delicious smells and shrieks from the roller coasters nearby.

He also thought about what a smart idea it had been to _not_ invite Sherlock. He would have been bored here, told John the exact ingredients of the hot dog he was eating, how many people had died on each of the rides, and complained about the dullness of it, and just be Sherlock. No, it was much better to be alone, to be reminded of his younger days, when he would go with his sister and parents, and later his various girlfriends.

He was passing by a certain stand, when a woman poked her head out and said "Fortune told?"

John quickly shook his head. "No thank you," he smiled softly.

"Free for veterans," the woman called out to him. John stopped, and turned to her in surprise. She smiled back at him.

 _What the hell?_ he thought. _She seems psychic, at least._

The woman's smile widened as he approached her, and she let him into the tent.

The first thing John noticed was that the tent smelled sickeningly sweet, like some kind of incense. He sat down in the chair she gestured to, and waited for her to sit down across from her.

"Let's see," She murmured, taking his hand and examining it. She looked up at him through her eyelashes. "There's a man in your life..."

"Oh, not this again," John grumbled, almost ready to leave the tent. The grip on his hand tightened.

"He is important to you," the woman continued. "And you are important to him… How did you meet this man?" She gave him a serious glare.

"Well, isn't that your job?" John joked, smiling awkwardly, and letting out a nervous chuckle. He was starting to feel uncomfortable.

"You must illuminate some things for me," she said sweetly. "Tell me, how did you meet this man?"

"Um… Well, we're flatmates."

"Yes, but _how_ did you meet?" she said again, digging her nails into his palm, causing him to flinch at the sudden pain, and staring at him intently. "When was the moment that decided if you were to meet or not?"

John blinked, and wondered if he screamed if anyone would come to help. "Um, well..." He tried to think.

_Who'd want me as a flatmate?_

_Heh._

_What?_

_Well, you're the second person to say that to me today._

"I guess it was when I went to visit Mike in the park that one day," he murmured.

"So if you changed that time, if you never went there, you would never had met this 'Sherlock Holmes'?" she asked.

"Yeah, I gue-- wait, I didn't tell you his name!" he realized, feeling more frightened by the minute. He tried to scramble back, but she pulled him back, drawing him incredibly close to her.

"Go back," she hissed at him, and John could swear he felt something crawling up his back. "Go back, and change the time. Change it, so you never meet this man, and your life will be changed forever!"

The last thing John saw before he blacked out was a silhouette of a dark coat, and a tall, slender man, walking down the streets of London, looking lost, or perhaps looking for something he had lost...


	2. John Watson

It was hot (not that Afghanistan was ever any different), the dry dirt crunched under his feet as he crouched with his men. There were reports of enemy activity, close in the area. Someone started shooting from across the field, nothing out of the ordinary, and each of the men ducked formulaically behind a wall to fire back.

Then someone hit their mark. A man besides John let out a scream (oh God the scream no no) and fell, and John immediately went to him, and held the man as he searched for the wound in the mess of spilling blood, but the wound was in his stomach, near his artery. There was nothing he could do. He took another horrified breath, as he looked back into the man’s face. He couldn’t be more than twenty, just a boy. He was screaming in pain, bleeding to death, staring at John, begging him to help him, but there was nothing he could do but watch him, and hold him as the boy’s dark brown eyes slowly faded into lifelessness.

Another bomb went off in the distance.

 

That was when he woke up, as he always did. The boy’s scared eyes burned into his brain. He lay there, for an hour at least, trying to keep himself from breaking down in tears. He tried vainly to remember what his therapist had told him when he felt like this, when he woke up from the gut wrenching dreams, but could not think of anything.

Not that they helped, anyway.

John finally forced himself to sit up on the bed. Forced being the operative word, as he had to go through each of the motions manually. _Put your left foot on the floor. Now your right foot. Now lift your torso into a sitting position_. He sat there for a while, watching the sun grow brighter through the window blinds, waiting for something just to happen, absolutely anything.

When nothing did, he let out a long sigh, and forced himself  to walk (stand up, grab cane, left foot ow, right foot, left foot ow) to the bathroom, thinking that a shower would at least wash off the cold sweat that covered him, and perhaps help him feel a bit better.

Of course, it didn’t (it never did). John stood in his dressing gown for a moment, at a loss of what to do. He had no job at this point (had only been home a few weeks, and he was sure he would be unable to handle any type of occupation at this time), and had no interest in anything, so finding ways to distract himself were exceedingly difficult.

Food, he thought, suddenly realising he was hungry. He limped over to the kitchen, and upon looking into the fridge, he remembered that there was almost no food (for the third time that week...God, he really should go shopping...), and settled dejectedly for an apple, noting with a sigh that it was bruised. He _really_ had to go shopping, then.

He walked to his desk, and pulled his laptop out of the drawer, trying not to linger on the loaded Browning that lay next to it..

“User logged on: John Watson.”

John wasn’t sure why he had used his two names, it was his own bloody computer, wasn’t it? He had only gotten it to reassure his therapist that he was moving along, recovering according to plan.

He signed on; a window was already open on the laptop, of his blog, which was completely blank.

 _His_ _blog_. It sounded ridiculous. What was he going to write about? “Had another dream of men dying last night, had an apple, and wondered what the point was of it all.”

Oh yeah. Ella would love that.

Actually, she would. She would sit up straighter in her chair, and ask John “elaborate on that...The point of _what_ exactly?” when really, he couldn’t.

He stared at the screen, trying to think of one thing to say. A joke? He couldn’t think of any. A story? He had no stories. It was useless having a stupid blog, but Ella was insistent. He had to see her today, and he knew what would happen. She’d ask about it, he’d say it was going well, and she’d know he was lying, and nothing would be solved.

The screen eventually faded into black, and John still sat, tapping his fingers against the desk impatiently, waiting for something to come to him.

When nothing did, he closed the laptop, and decided he might as well get going, he would be almost half an hour early, but he could not stand the silence of his hotel room any longer.

~

Ella’s office was located a block away from St. Bartholomew’s main building, and there were often times doctors and nurses milling about the area, sometimes still in their garbs. Whenever John saw them, he felt a pang of...Regret? No, wonderment,he supposed. He could have been with these men and women if he had not employed in the army, getting coffee during the ten minute breaks, laughing about some neurotic patient or new research, never having to deal with PTSD, or have to go to a therapist twice a week, or deal with the disadvantages to London civilisation. Was it worth it? He didn’t know.

Due to traffic, and a slow cabbie, John arrived at her office only 23 minutes before his time, and settled in to the waiting room, opening up a newspaper he saw lying on the table.

 _Serial Suicides? Or Work of a Killer?_ the headline read. Seemed interesting enough, John thought as he continued on to the article, which talked about three people apparently killing themselves the exact same way, although none of the people had known each other, and only one of them had shown signs of depression before.

Halfway through, John had to put the newspaper down, not because the descriptions of the various people found dead were particularly gruesome, but mostly because it was so _interesting_. Mass suicide, no sign of a pact or cult? He’d love to be a part of that investigation team. The knowledge that he would never really know, being as the police would keep many of the details from the press, was almost heartbreaking to him. There were fascinating things happening in London, and here he was, sitting in his therapist’s office, incredibly depressed and bored with life.

The therapy session itself was, as usual, unhelpful. Although, to Ella’s credit, John wasn’t the most cooperative patient.

 

_“How’s Harry?”_

_“Good.”_

_“Have you talked to her lately?”_

_“...No.”_

_“And the job search? Any luck with that?”_

_“A bit.”_

_“Have you left your hotel room?”_

_“...No.”_

_“How’s your blog going?”_

_“Good. Really good.”_

_“...You haven’t written a word, have you?”_

_“Nope.”_

 

John watched as she scribbled down ‘ _Still has trust issues_ ’ in her notebook.

Was that all he was now? a note, written at the top of a notebook? _John Watson: Has trust issues_.

She tried to remind him why he should keep his blog, saying that it would help, writing everything that happened to him.

“Nothing ever happens to me,” he said bitterly, thinking to those who were working on the serial suicide case, those who were still fighting for their lives in Afghanistan, those who had never had to see a man die, who liked the mundane life of London. Something was happening to them, whether it was death, or discovery, or falling in love.

She scribbled something else down, covering her writing with her hand, to keep him from looking. She was learning.

At the end of the session, she smiled at him, wrote down his next appointment on a slip of paper, and said “work on the blog, alright?”

She always said things like that. Work on the job search, work on the blog, work on talking to your sister, etc. He wouldn’t do it, of course. What was the point? He didn’t say this, he simply smiled and said he would, and limped out of the office, knowing she was watching pitifully after him.

 

After his therapist sessions, John always went one of two directions: A small park, which was about two blocks straight from the office, or past the main hospital building. The calm, tranquil peace of the park helped him reel down from all the frustration everything had been causing him, while St. Bart’s brought him back to when he was young, and a student there, when he and his friends would try to pick up on the nurses, and cheat off each other’s exams, when things were better.

He strode out of the building, and glanced at his watch. 10:51, on the dot. Very strange.

He paused for a moment, deciding which way he should go today. He was rather riled up, and the nostalgia the hospital would bring him might make him angrier, or sadder, or invoke some other emotion. The park would help much better today, maybe he’d grab a scone on his way out.

Then he felt a shiver run down his back, as if someone were watching him. He glanced around, but saw no one. A spell of dizziness suddenly overcame him, and he blinked and shook his head to try to get rid of it, and he could have sworn something was holding onto his shoulder.

 _The hospital_ , a dark voice seemed to hiss in his ear. _Go past the hospital._

And so he did.

 


	3. Pink

The following morning, John woke up with a desperate gasp, another cold dream shaking him to the bone. The cry of an officer still rang in his ears, and the bright lights of a bomb going off exploded behind his eyes

After almost twenty minutes, his breathing and heart rate lowered to a semi-normal pace, and he shakily sat up in bed.

He had to get out of the hotel room, really. He was already starting to go insane.

Yet he couldn’t force himself to go. He had many things to do, get a job, get some exercise, _eat_ , things that people did every day without a thought, but he couldn’t make himself do it. God, he was pathetic.

It was the yoghurt that finally did him in. Or, the lack of it, he supposed. There was only two cups of it, and both banana. He hated banana yoghurt, why the hell did he buy it?

He sighed dejectedly, and got dressed in his least-wrinkly clothes, and headed out to face the world.

~

It was interesting, to say the least.

He caught a girl eyeing him in the dairy aisle, and he turned and smiled at her, and bent down to grab something, and when he looked back up to her, she had a look of terror on her face, which quickly vanished when she saw him looking, instead giving an uncomfortable smile and turning away.

He paused for a moment, confused. Was the cane that repulsive? He sighed, and kept going.

The girl running the checkout line was incredibly cute, petite, with dark red hair and freckles, and dimples appeared every time she spoke to a customer.

Still reeling from the dairy aisle incident, John went easy on the flirting.

“Hello, how are you?” she said brightly, scanning the items.

“Pretty good, and you?” he asked, smiling sweetly at her.

“Can’t complain,” she laughed, and looked at him slyly through her eyelashes, a devious smile on her face.

Yep. He still had it. He smiled wider.

“That’s good. That’s very good,” he nodded at her, tapping his finger on the counter. “Not complaining is always a good sign.”

She laughed again, her dimples becoming deeper. “Yeah, I’d say so. Not the best, though. It’s the in between, much more potential to get better, you know?”

_I have no idea what you mean_ , John thought, but instead said, “yeah, yeah, definitely. Potential betterness is always best with a pint, though, don’t you agree?”

The girl’s face flushed, and eyed him with a soft smirk on her face as she printed out his receipt. After she ripped it off, she folded it with a flourish, and was about to hand it to him, still smiling flirtily at him, when she suddenly let out a shout, and took a step back from him.

John blinked in surprise, jumping back in a defensive stance automatically. “What? What’s the matter?” he asked, looking around him.

Her face seemed very pale now, and she shook her head slowly. “N-nothing...I just...I thought I saw something on your back...” she whispered, handing him the receipt, still looking behind him, visibly still shaken.

John nodded, feeling confused and frightened, and gathered his bags, deciding that it probably was not the best idea to ask for her number after that.

He shrugged off the questionings that were running through his head. Some things didn’t work out, he figured. Two women didn’t mean anything.

He pushed the scenarios out of his head, and continued to go about his to-do list.

_Food, so far so good..._ John thought, _now...resume?_

He decided to go to a library for this task, as he figured if he worked in his hotel room he’d become too depressed to actually get anything done.

He had had a previous girlfriend who’d gone to school at the Business School of London, and there was a small library across from the two main academic buildings. He let himself in, glancing at his watch and noticing it was almost three. _Plenty of time,_ he figured.

However, he’d forgotten how hard resume writing was, and how much harder it was when one was extremely depressed. He got endlessly distracted by people walking by him, as well as the various internet ads that continually popped up for him. If he were in his right frame of mind, he probably would have recognized it was a lost cause, and had gone home. But no, John was determined to finish this tonight, even if it ended up killing him.

Which meant no breaks, which meant no dinner, although he was starving, and thought of that Italian restaurant he had seen on the way to the library. He’d eat later, when he’d finished this.

When he had finally got to a stopping point, or at least at a point where he was relatively satisfied (Work on it later, revise it tomorrow), it was about ten, and he was simply exhausted. He’d maybe eat one of the packaged meals he had bought earlier, and just go to sleep.

As he walked out of the building, he noticed a crowd of people crowded around the building across the street, and an ambulance and multiple police cars.

He probably shouldn’t go over...It’d be rude, unnecessary, he didn’t need to, his leg hurt- How the hell was he _not_ supposed to go over there?

John limped across the street, staring at the ground, wincing with each step. He had walked much too far today. He glanced up upon hearing the sounds of sirens down the way, and saw a gathering of police officers and caution tape. He slightly smiled to himself as he limped over.

There were already a few people gathered around the tape, speaking in hushed tones. John peeked around the scene, so far not seeing anything of interest. There was a dark skinned woman talking angrily into a walkie talkie, but John couldn’t pick up what she was saying.

A dark, long car pulled up, and a tall man with a receding hairline walked out, holding an umbrella (why was he holding an umbrella? It hadn’t rained for days...), looking extremely grim.

“Is it...him, then?” he asked a gray haired officer.

The gray haired man sighed. “...Yes. They’re taking him out right now.”

“He took the damn pill,” the umbrella man said, just a statement.

“Yes,” the gray haired man sighed.

The umbrella man shuddered. “Jesus. The _idiot_.”

“Yes...We still don’t understand the details...He just disappeared, we don’t know how he got here...” the man trailed off, and looked towards the door, and nodded. “That’d be him.”

John turned his attention to a stretcher being wheeled out, shivering involuntarily. He had seen too many of them in his time.

As the form was wheeled by him, a hand fell from under the blanket, causing John to jump. The hand was pale, and surrounded by a dark sleeve. Something seemed to ripple through him, as if this man had meant something. But that was impossible, wasn’t it?

“What happened?” a woman next to him asked to one of the officers. The walkie-talkie woman turned to her and sighed.

“One of the suicides,” she said sharply, almost accusing. “A detective, that’s all.” She then glanced to John, and then seemed to look beyond him, her face taking on a strange expression as she did. John stared back at her, starting to become irritated with people giving him that look. She shook her head, and quickly walked away.

Another suicide? Very interesting, John thought as he smiled, once again shaking off the feeling of unease that increased with everyone seeming frightened of something behind him.

They loaded the body into the ambulance, and the crowd started to dissipate, but John stayed for a few moments, watching the various police officers argue about something.

He was about to start walking again, when he heard rapid footsteps, and he turned to see a mousy haired woman run up to him.

She was an average height, just a bit smaller than him, wearing an extremely mismatched outfit, and ran towards him with a look of familiarity, as if she knew him. But he didn’t, he had never seen her before.

“Who was it? Was it him?” she asked hurriedly, a worried look on her face. “Was it the detective?”

“Well yes, but there are hundreds in London...It could have been any one of them...”

The woman turned and stared at him, her mouth dropping open in shock. She looked at his face for only a moment, and then seemed to look past him, at his shoulder. Her eyebrows furrowed in strange fascination.

“What is it?” John asked, exasperated. “Why is everyone doing that?!”

She looked back up to his face. “Nothing...It’s, it’s nothing.” She smiled softly at him, a hint of sadness in her eyes, and then gazed in the direction the ambulance had gone. “Take care, John Watson.” She nodded at him and turned to leave.

John nodded back, and then realised she had said his name.

“What? How-” He turned back to where she had come, but she was gone. He stared around the street. It was almost deserted now, and it was much too fast for her to have been able to turn a corner.

He sighed, and shook his head, at this point too tired of everything to even care. He began to limp towards the main road, planning on taking a cab back to the hotel and sleeping for as long as he could.


	4. Bankers and Games

A couple months passed, and John slowly (very slowly) was recovering. He had a job now, and a shitty flat, and a girlfriend. That was progress, right? He had gotten the job a few weeks after that strange day, at a clinic. It was a boring, mundane job, and John absolutely hated it, but it paid the bills.

His girlfriend, Sarah, was his boss at the clinic, something he knew would fail miserably. Perhaps that was the reason why he went for the relationship, as when it would inevitably fall apart, he would have something interesting to look forward to, of avoiding her at the clinic. Just like the battlefield again.

He had gotten a small little Flat in Lambeth, with only three rooms, and an extremely loud couple upstairs. He tried to stay out of the flat as much as possible, only going there to sleep, and even that was difficult, due to continuing nightmares and a developing habit of insomnia.

For whatever reason, he didn’t tell Ella any of this. He said he had a job, that it was paying well, that he had a girlfriend, who was very sweet, and that he had a new flat, but none of the bad stuff.

If he were to be completely honest, he would admit that really, nothing had changed. He was still depressed, still angry at the world, still limping.

It was almost as if he was waiting for something, or _someone_. Someone to come into his life, and change it dramatically, make it interesting and worth living again.

But that never happened. not in real life. Healing took time, or something. That’s what everyone told him.

Occasionally, something strange would happen, a child suddenly screaming at the sight of him, and a mother quickly explaining to them that he just had a cane, that it was nothing to be scared of, while looking apologetically at him, but the child still would stare at him, as if something was attached to him. Or a patient would do a double take at the sight of him, blink in surprise, and shake their heads as if they were seeing things.

That he had told Ella. She had said it was just him, being paranoid, or some people taking his cane and limp too seriously, and he should forget about it.

It was rather hard to do so, he found. A bit difficult to ignore people staring at him like some sort of freak.

It was a Thursday morning, completely average in that he woke with a pain in his leg, something that had in the recent months had become his alarm clock.

The night had been (thankfully) devoid of nightmares, but was also devoid of all dreams, or even sleep. For once it was not his neighbours, just a pounding headache that went through his entire skull. He had been having these headaches for the past week, at one point being so strong he had had to leave work early. He did not remember it going away, and could feel the remnants of it hammering away in his head.

He sighed, and washed his face to wake himself up, and dressed quickly before settling down at the table (if one could call it that) with an apple and the newspaper, whistling absent mindedly at the headlines:

 

SERIAL BOMBER? ANOTHER RESIDENTIAL BUILDING IN FLAMES

 

CHINESE DRUG AND STOLEN ART CARTEL IN LONDON

 

SHOWING OF LOST VERMEER PAINTING

 

“London’s blowing up, literally,” he muttered to himself. “And I’m still...right...here...”

He only ate half of his apple, finding that he was either no longer hungry, or no longer interested in eating it. He threw out the core, and put on his jacket as he walked out the door, to catch a cab.

As he held out his hand to hail the taxi, he saw an older man, looking worse for the wear, give him a strange look before hurrying away, muttering something about bugs. John stared in surprise as the man almost ran down the street. He rolled his eyes slightly and continued to attempt to hail down a cab.

After three cabs seemed to speed by him, one finally stopped, and braced himself for the twice-a-day awkward silence ride to work.

He arrived at work, gave polite smiles to the patients already seated, and to the receptionist, and a quick hug to Sarah on his way to his office.

The day passed slowly, ever so slowly. At lunch Sarah proposed he go to her flat for the night, for better sleep, with a teasing smile on her face.

He should have been happy, excited even. It wasn’t as if he were a nervous lover, or that he had any issues with it to begin with. Ella would say he was pushing the envelope, that it was too early for such a leap. She was probably right. But he had agreed, making sure to smile back to her, so she didn’t notice his hesitance.

However, as he worked throughout the rest of the day, he realised that it could end horribly. What if he wasn’t able to perform, or woke up screaming next to her, or both? She would be understanding, but it would create a rift.

Strangely enough, his salvation from such a situation came as he was about ready to leave. He was just putting on his coat, when Sarah looked in, looking worried.

“John,” she said quickly. “I’m sorry, but there’s been another massive explosion... at a pool somewhere, and the hospital needs more help, most of the staff is already on call at the museum shootout. You’re the most experienced out of everyone, but I know you’ve had a long day--”

“I’ll go,” John replied before she could finish. He had suddenly felt a jolt of adrenaline, and excitement. A bombing-- horrible, yes, but fascinating, and much more interesting than kids with runny noses. He threw on his coat and left the clinic, only half listen to the directions Sarah gave him. It wasn’t like he didn’t know where St. Bartholomew's was.

He quickly ran to the hospital, the staff entrance, where there was a large crowd of doctors and nurses rushing about. A young girl in nurse’s uniform saw him and quickly approached him.

“You’re from the clinic, right?” she said shakily. She seemed pale. It was probably her first time having to deal with something like this. “We have some scrubs for you, if you could change into them quickly...” she handed him a folded doctor’s apron, and gloves, which he put on over his clothes. She nodded when he did, and turned around, beckoning him to follow. He did, to where he was supposing they were trying to operate on the victims.

“What exactly happened? If you know?” John asked, as they passed a few stretchers, covered in blood and mutilations.

“Um, I only know the general,” the girl whispered. “The police received some call from someone, like a hostage situation, or something? I don’t know, but they went to the pool, but it was a trap, and the whole thing blew up.” She seemed extremely breathless by the time she finished, and was obviously under great distress, so John didn’t press any further, although he was dying to know.

“Okay, so if you could help with stitches and burns.” she pointed to a room, which was already full of doctors, her finger shaking. “I have to get back to my post.” She quickly rushed off before John could thank her.

He grabbed supplies, and went to where a silver-haired man lay in a hospital bed. Upon getting closer, John ground his teeth. The man’s right hand was gone, a bloodied bandage already around the wrist. His nose was swollen almost twice what it would have been, and there was a bloody burn on his left shoulder.

Through all these injuries, however, John could have sworn he recognized the man from somewhere, but he couldn’t think of where.

He started compressing the burn, noting the unconscious man’s groan of pain.

It became rather obvious to John that the man wouldn’t survive, the burn had exposed muscle, and was almost at the bone,and now John could see blood in his ears, signalling possible brain damage. He had seen many injuries such as this, and while he felt his heart hammer in fear and panic, just as he had in those many months in Afghanistan, there was also a high that seemed to go with it, that he was once again _useful_ in some way.

Although John covered the wounds and made him as comfortable as he could, within an hour the man had died. According to his badge that was near his bed, he was the Detective Inspector. He sighed, feeling suddenly deflated, as he always did when he lost a patient.

He went out into the hall, to see if he could get water before having to deal with another victim, when he saw her, just out of the corner of his eye.

It was the strange woman who had disappeared before his eyes that night months ago. She was looking straight at him, and quickly turned the corner before he could say something.

He followed her blindly, almost completely forgetting where he was, or why he was there. He wanted answers.

She was still there when he passed the corner. This slightly surprised him, although it it occurred to him that it shouldn’t have. Did he really expect her to disappear?

“Who are you?” he asked. She looked slightly taken aback by his affrontedness.

“Why are you here?” she asked instead of answering. He was about to back up his position, but the look on her face made him stop.

“There _is_ a bombing, I’m helping,” he almost snarled. “Why are _you_ here?”

Her eyes seemed to widen at the mention of the bombing. “I’m here because I work here,” she said simply, looking at him strangely. “Don’t worry about me, John.”

“How do you know my name?”

“You’ll be getting a bonus for this, won’t you? Probably a week’s worth of salary, I’d suppose?”

He didn’t answer, just furrowed his eyebrows and cocked his head in confusion.

“What are you planning on doing for the holidays?”

“The holidays?” he asked incredulously. “It’s April! Those are months away!”

“You should save up the bonus. Maybe go to Oxford, see your sister for Christmas. Get away from London.” She flashed him a pretty smile, and looked past him before striding past him.

He turned to call out to her, as she hadn’t answered any of his questions, but she was gone. Again. He jogged down the hall, turning the corner, where there were still many nurses and doctors dealing with the patients, but there was no sign of her.

What the hell?

He wasn’t sure what was happening, but tried to concentrate on his duty at the hospital.

Finally, at almost midnight, he was able to leave. He walked down the stairs, completely exhausted, defeated, yet somehow triumphant at the same time. He had done something meaningful for once, saving people, instead of curing colds.

When he reached the street, he reached into his pocket, and pulled out his phone, noticing he had gotten a few texts, all from Sarah.

_Let me know when you get out, okay? It’ll probably be late, but if not maybe you can still come over._

 

_Is everything okay? I heard DI Lestrade was killed...He was one of the best policemen. It’s a real shame._

 

_I’m closing up, so if you get out before midnight, just get a cab to my place?_

 

_John, you left your cane here...How did you get to the hospital without your cane?_

 

John blinked at the last text. His cane...? No...No, he didn’t have it with him. He had spent the whole six hours on his feet, yet there was no pain in his leg at all. How _did_ he get to the hospital without it?

He shook his head, and sent a text to Sarah, telling her that it was probably too late to go over, maybe another time, when there wasn’t some massive April Fool’s crime spree.

This whole night had been strange.


	5. Bohemia

John had never been a Christmas-kind-of guy. He enjoyed the get-togethers, somewhat, and the tunes were always nice, but growing up with an alcoholic father who always found something to scream about on Christmas Eve had taken most of the fun out of the holiday for a lifetime.

He used to not even come home on holiday break during his tour in Afghanistan. He hadn’t wanted to go back, knowing that he would see Clara and Harry fighting, and friends who had much better lives than him.

But then Harry had called at the end of November, inviting him to stay with her in Oxford. She started off with her enticing promises, that she’d been clean for several weeks now, and a later on in the message guilted him with the reminder that she hadn’t seen him in months, and what was the point of them both being alone during the holidays?

It was all the same, manipulating pleas that she had used from when they were children, and John was a bit insulted that she still thought he would fall for them. He almost turned her down, given that his life was stressful enough without having to deal with Harry’s mess as well. But as he picked up the phone to give her some sorry excuse, he realised she had a point. They really were all they had, now that Harry had divorced, and since John’s joke of a relationship had crashed and burned ages ago. And what was he going to do, anyway? Sit at home and feel sorry for himself?

Even with that logic, as soon as he said he’d come, he started worrying. Throughout the entire month of December he had a sense of foreboding over him, like something would go horribly wrong if he went. It was a ridiculous thought, he and Harry, while their fights did get very loud, had never escalated to violence. The train would not be hijacked; after the terrorist attack on that German flight some months back all security had been beefed up again. No one depended on him back home, he didn’t even have any plants to be looked after, except for the mould growing above the shower.

Nothing would go _that_ terribly wrong. Of course it wouldn’t.

But he couldn’t help that nagging feeling, almost pulling at the back of his neck.

This feeling was not helped by the conductor literally jumping in fear away from him as he took John’s ticket, and the person sitting next to him continually craning around him, and the kid behind him screaming the entire bloody trip. It was as if these people had never seen a cane before.

The crowd on the platform when John got off the train was also unsettling, but John had never enjoyed crowds. It was only a matter of pushing through them, occasionally using his cane to carefully push someone aside, before he finally saw his sister, standing off to the side, looking incredibly nervous. John raised his hand and called out to her, and she smiled, the both of them moving forward to greet each other, and to look one another over to see how much older they’d gotten in the time they hadn’t seen each other.

Harry looked similar enough to John that people would recognize them as siblings if they stood next to each other, but it was mostly just the face shape and the blue eyes. She was quite a few inches shorter than him (one of the few people who were, although he’d deny that), and had darker, curlier hair than him.

The first thing he noticed as he looked over her was how tired she looked. There were dark circles under her eyes, the one part of her face that she hadn’t carefully composed with makeup before coming to get him. Was she still worrying over the divorce, after all these months?

He reminded himself that she was probably was thinking the same thing of him. They’d both left their situations months ago, yet they were still hanging on to it.

He hated when he remembered how similar they were.

She embraced John before he could stop her, and he almost fell over from the force of her hug. She smelled extremely sweet, some type of perfume that he didn’t recognize.

“Hi,” he laughed softly. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, wasting no time in leading John out of the train station. “ _Much_ too long. You really should have called--I could get you some place here, if you wanted...London must be incredibly lonely. You sounded tired the last time I called. Have you been feeling alright?” Typical Harry. Bouncing from topic to topic in moments and still managing to judge and make assumptions on every one.

John tried his best to make it look like he was absolutely fine, and that he wasn’t limping at all, but he knew it wasn’t working, and caught his sister’s pitiful look. (More fodder for her to use against him, now.)

“No, I’m fine. You had just caught me on a bad day, is all.” He tried his best to smile at her. “And you know I can’t leave London. It’s home; I don’t know what I would do without it.”

It was true. Although he felt incredibly trapped, alone, depressed in that cursed city, he felt like he couldn’t leave. Anywhere else would have been worse, because it would be different, with no memories or trust. Being depressed in London was horrible, but at least it was a place he felt safe, where he could at least fantasize about happier days. Better than being just as depressed in Oxford, where he didn’t know anyone and the first year uni students would be smarter than him anyway.

Harry insisted on carrying John’s bags, and put them in the boot of her car with a warm, proud smile, as if she’d proved herself as a sister by taking the load off of him. “Well, if you change your mind, I’ll be right here for you.”

John nodded, giving her a fake smile as he got in beside her. Ten minutes in and he already had regressed to his childhood defense mechanism, of hoping that if he stayed silent she’d stop talking.

He’d also forgotten how horrid of a driver she was. During the twenty minute ride to her home, John found himself praying with each turn, or at least whispering _Jesus_ under his breath every time. Eventually he shut his eyes, more out of instinct than anything.

When he heard the engine cut, he slowly opened his eye, to see himself in Harry’s driveway. He let out his large breath with a hiss, still clenching onto the armrest.

He was taking cabs the rest of this trip.

Harry insisted on taking in his bag, probably thinking it painted her in a sympathetic light, as if trying to win his favor. In reality, however, it just made John resent her even more for reminding him that he was an old man, feeble and weak, not even trusted to haul his suitcase up one flight of stairs.

After properly making sure he was all settled in like a good hostess, Harry said she had to go somewhere. She had said where, but John hadn’t been paying attention, and didn’t really care anyway.

As soon as he heard the door click shut, John hopped up out of his chair, and searched through all the kitchen cupboards for hidden bottles of booze. When that search came up empty, he snuck in her room and checked the wardrobe and drawers there as well, not at all trusting his sister when it came to kicking alcoholism.

The usual places had no trace of alcohol, but John wasn’t fooled. The only thing that proved was that she knew where he would look.

He sighed, and gave up for the moment. He didn’t know when she would be back, anyway. When she was gone again he’d conduct a more thorough search, until then he’d haltingly give her the benefit of the (very, very small) doubt.

~

Hours later, after a tense dinner and forced conversations, John still lay awake in bed, feeling drowsy but not able to drop off. His leg was sore, as was his back and shoulders, probably from all the stress. He couldn’t get comfortable at all in bed, the pillows were far too soft (was that even possible?).

After a few more tosses and turns he got up to use the loo again, sighing as he walked out of the guest room. He stopped when he noticed a light at the end of the hall, where the living room was.

He walked towards it, and soon saw Harry sitting in one of the chairs, staring absently into the empty fireplace, seemingly unaware of John behind her.

In her hand was a half-empty brandy glass, and a bottle of the liquid was on the table beside her.

He cleared his throat. She glanced up at him, and suddenly her sadness was replaced with panic; her eyes widened and her face paled, and she put the glass down on the table, almost tossing it. Before John could say anything, she jumped into her defence.

“I’m sorry,” she said, almost squeaked. “I just, I-I...I’m sorry.”

John sighed in annoyance. “So, were you ever clean, or was that just to get me to see you?” he asked accusingly.

She flinched at his tone. “I was,” she said quietly. “For a few weeks...But it’s just...it’s so hard! Some days it’s absolutely fine, and then the next I feel like I’ll die, just fall down dead, if I don’t have something...Sometimes it just _hurts_ so much.” Tears overflowed from her eyes, and she gave a small whimper.

John glared at her, although he could hear the sincerity of her voice. He could recognise the desperation, the hopelessness in those days. He opened his mouth to snap back, but she started again.

“And you can pretend you’re so righteous, like you always have. You can ride your high horse and condemn me, John Watson, but I’m not blind! You’re even more broken as me. The only difference between you and me is I have an addiction. Does that make me worse that you? Or just as tragic?”

John stopped, feeling anger rise up in him. He drew in a breath and glared at her, and was about to yell something, when it hit him she was right. Dammit, she was right.

“You hate hearing the truth, I know,” she mumbled, starting to wring her hands together. “And I’m sorry… It isn’t as if I enjoy this.”

John found himself sitting down in the chair across from her, staring at her, unable to think of anything to say.

There was a long silence, where John stared ahead, and Harry sniffled.

“I should just get myself into rehab, shouldn’t I?” she asked.

John swallowed. “Maybe,” he whispered, and nodded.

He could hear a scoffing noise from her. “For God’s sake, John, talk to me! I can’t stand you being silent. You’re always silent! We’re both fucked up here, I’m _trying_ to open up to you, and you’re all clammed up!”

Maybe it was the yelling, or the words, but John found himself crying before he could stop himself. He immediately wiped at his eyes, trying to hide and ignore the tears. Even after all these years, he still couldn’t stand to cry in front of anyone. His father would be proud. After a few careful, heaving breaths, he took the glass from the table and poured more brandy, gulping it down and ignoring the sting.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Harry still sitting, still watching him. He shook his head desperately.

“I can’t. Talk to you,” he said tightly, trying to keep his voice even. “I. Just. Can’t.” He took a sharp gasp and shook his head again. He could hardly even put his thoughts into words. He couldn’t tell her, it wasn’t possible.

Harry had an expression on her face, one that took John a while to place. Compassion, he finally realised. Not pity, but empathy, sisterly compassion.

She sniffled again, and wiped her own eyes. “Why are we so fucked up?” she asked quietly.

John laughed despite himself, glancing up at her and taking another gulp of brandy. “Christ, how many times I’ve wondered that…” he said shakily, still not trusting himself not to burst into tears.

Harry choked out a small laughing sob. “I worry about you,” she confessed. “Every night. More than when you were deployed…The worst thing that would happen there is you would die… But you’ve always kept things so tight against you, never let anyone in… And you’ve been through so much. Those nightmares will eat at you, they’ll destroy you from the inside out… Why won’t you let someone help you for a change?”

John stared at her, feeling guilt overwhelm him. She was worried about him. She knew that he was in pain and she was trying to reach out to him.

John hated it. He hated how he wouldn’t be able to help her. He hated that she had thought of him all this time, when he had never wanted her to.

Most of all, he hated that he hadn’t worried about her, not for one second.

“I’m fine,” he bit out, knowing how horrible it sounded.

“No, you’re not,” she said softly.

And then there was silence. They sat like that for quite a while, neither of them daring to break it. There were several times John almost spoke, but he wasn’t sure what he would even say.

Finally, Harry put her hand on John’s, and gave him a small smile. He glanced up, and returned it, for once not feeling indignant or insulted by her attempts to reconcile. There still were no words. Neither of them were used to this, this truce, or ceasefire. What else would they do?

After a long while, John stood up. He took the brandy bottle and walked over to the kitchen, and glanced to her before pouring the contents down the sink. She was watching him, he knew that.

“Do you have any more?” he asked her, his voice sounding rough and loud, despite its hushed tone. She shook her head. John didn’t know if she was lying or not, but he didn’t feel up to dealing with it.

He nodded, and turned back to go to bed. His leg was still throbbing, his shoulders were sore, and he just as exhausted, depressed, and hopeless than he had before he went down that hall.

But for once, he wasn’t angry at his sister.

~

The following week was interesting, to say the least. John and Harry had not fought once since that night, probably the longest they’d gone since they’d learned to talk. Yet it was nice. For once, John didn’t find himself hating Christmas, or his sister.

Nothing had even been resolved. John hadn’t come clean about anything, and he still didn’t know if Harry was hiding more bottles from him. He found he didn’t care.

“Have you found the channel yet?” Harry asked now, slamming cupboard doors as she tried to find the champagne glasses.

“Yeah, I think so, they’re at least talking about the New Year, so close enough, right?” John called back.

It was an hour before midnight, he and Harry had decided to stay in for it (not as if they’d been invited for any parties), with sparkling apple juice, and to just watch telly and feel sorry for themselves.

“Alright, I think that’s all of it,” Harry chirped as she sat down, setting down the bottle and glasses.

“Opener,” John reminded her, smiling softly.

“Oh! Right!” She laughed and went back into the kitchen. John turned his attention back to the annoyingly cheerful anchors, and wishing horrible deaths on both of them.

“And let me tell you, Madison, the ending of this year, it’s almost bittersweet, isn’t it?” the man asked.

“Yes, most definitely-”

“Leaving behind all these good memories, everything amazing that has happened, yet now we have a _new_ opportunity for new memories, and more amazing things to happen, it almost makes you jittery, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, Daniel, it’s almost like-”

“Just think of where we’ll be in a year, what will have happened with us, who will have fallen in love, gotten married, had a baby, all those amazing life stones.”

 Madison looked like she was about to punch Daniel in the face, which made John smirk. That would be a good New Years.

 Suddenly there was a “blip” sound from the telly, a flash of green on the screen, and a sudden shot to someone's interior. There was a man sitting, facing the camera, with receding sandy hair, a rather large nose, and pale, almost ashen parlour. John recognized him from some news a while back, something to do with international law, or something. He was surrounded by guards, in a uniform that John did not recognize.

 “This is urgent, emergency news,” he said slowly, seemingly diplomatic, although panic was rising in his voice. “The government has declared a state of emergency.”

  John stood up straighter.

 "The government has declared bankruptcy,” he continued, glancing around him at the men surrounding him. John realised they were pointing their guns right at him. There was a pause, and John could hear some snarled words caught by the microphone, probably from one of the guards. The man jumped, and continued. “Due to demands...B-by an unknown source, the government has been forced to give in, and has met these demands of this unknown terrorist.”

 “Oh my God...” John whispered. “Is this a joke?”

 “Parliament...has already been closed, for an indefinite time, and the prime minister has already resigned,” he said. “We ask citizens to remain calm…” A broken sob escaped him. 

 The screen went static again for a moment, then another woman appeared through the white noise, this one dark haired and poshly dressed, with a smug smile on her red lips. She winked, and stroked her cheek with what John swore was a riding crop. Then she was gone again.

 “It’s forsaken!” the man almost shrieked. “Get out while you can… and… God save the Queen!”

 Someone put their hand over the camera on the scene, and a shot was heard, before silence, and the television turned to static.

 “Oh my God...” Harry mirrored John’s words, after several moments of silence. He jumped. He hadn’t seen her there. “What the hell...”

 They both stared at the white noise for several minutes in silence. Soon there were shouts from outside, and the sound of breaking glass.

  John stood up. “I’ll be right back,” he said, grabbing his coat and going to the door.

 “John! No, please… you saw what happened,” Harry protested, her voice shrill.

 John didn’t respond. He needed to see what was going on.

As he walked out onto the sidewalk, he had to duck when another beer bottle flew past him and crashed onto the cement.

“Jesus!” John yelled, turning to the three men on the street. “What the fuck is going on?!”

“Oi, you saw the news!” one of them shouted back. They were obviously drunk. “Prime minister’s dead… England’s fallen… What’s the point?”

 “My sister says the queen’s dead too… everyone, all gunned down… Someone somehow got the security codes, or somethin’,” one of the others said. “She’s in London, I told her to lock all her doors and stay in. Riots prob’ly all over the place.”

 John felt his mouth drop open, and he ran down the stairs. “Holy shit,” he muttered to himself. “So… Everything’s gone?” This couldn’t actually be happening, could it?

“You saw the minister! You expect something else to happen?”

“Christ,” John grumbled, and turned to look on the street, where more people were yelling. Gunshots and breaking glass echoed through the buildings.

He heard a gasp from behind him, and he turned around to see the shorter man, with a sawed off shotgun in his hand, pointed at him.

Panic swept through John. He raised his hands slowly. “Oh-Okay, listen, just take it easy...”

“Turn around!” the man yelled.

“Okay, I am, just, just calm down, put the gun down.” John shakily turned around, facing the wall. He didn’t want to die here, not now, not here, not after everything he’d been through… He closed his eyes, and waited for the shot.

Nothing happened.

He opened his eyes, and looked behind him. The man blinked in confusion. “I...I thought I saw something...”

John only gave a brisk nod, out of instinct more than anything else, then took off down the street, his heart pounding in his chest.

People were screaming, he could hear fights going off all over, but he kept running, not even sure where he was going. He just had to get out.

Then he saw her.

She was at the corner, behind all the chaos that was occurring. She was still wearing her sweater, the exact same outfit she’d had on every other time he’d seen her. She made eye contact with him, and turned the corner.

He slowed down, and followed her. How could he not?

She waited until he approached her before speaking. “John.”

“Why is this happening?” he asked. “You’re always here when something horrible happens...Who are you?”

The woman’s face darkened, a sad look appearing in her eyes. “Do you...” she murmured softly. “Do you remember, months ago, the man who died at the college?”

“Yeah, of course. That’s when I first saw you.” John paused, furrowing his eyebrows as he tried to piece the puzzle together. “Who...Who was that man?”

She stared beyond John, her eyes pensive, and opaque. “He was the most brilliant man I’d ever met.” She closed her eyes, and John could see tears on her eyelashes.

“What does he have to do anything?”

“He...He could have stopped all of this.”

“He’s dead.”

“Yes, something happened. He wasn’t supposed to die, but he did.” She took a deep breath. “You...You were supposed to stop him. You did something, you stopped him from taking that damn pill. But, you didn’t… You never met.”

John blinked. “I don’t understand. How was I supposed to meet him, if I didn’t?” Then he noticed her looking beyond him again. “... What’s on my back? Why does everyone think there’s something on my back?”

“Something changed your mind. Made it so you never met.” Her dark pensive eyes met his. “I’m sorry, John.”

“I-What does that mean? What’s going to happen to me?” John asked before he could stop himself. He could feel tears well up in his eyes.

The woman shook her head slowly. “I’m… I’m sorry,” she whispered, and stepped back into the shadows.

John didn’t bother to follow her. He knew she would disappear, like she always did.

He stood, rooted in the same spot for he didn’t know how long, as he heard people screaming, the sounds of guns going off, angry bottles breaking...

What the hell was happening to him?

He stumbled back to Harry’s house, completely and utterly drained, wanting nothing more than to collapse on the floor and die. He was about to do so, even, when he heard Harry scream.

“Oh, _God,_ John! Where the hell were you? It’s been _hours_ , and, _oh my God_ , John, people are getting hurt. People are dying! There are riots throughout the entire country, all of Parliament's dead, people are killing each other and for a second I thought you were dead and you left your damn cane here so I thought--”

John froze, glancing past his sister to see that his cane was there, leaning against the couch, forgotten in the night’s events.

How the hell had he forgotten his cane, especially when he had been _running_ , for God’s sake?

~

“Please don’t go,” Harry said for the fifth time that morning, biting her lip and blinking back tears. “It’s not safe… please, just stay here. We can work something out.” She reached out and grabbed onto John’s arm.

John shook her off, and gave her a sad smile. “I have to,” he said. “People are going to need a doctor there.”

Harry let out a muffled sob. “Please,” she whispered, desperation hard in her voice.

John looked at her, and felt his heart almost break. They were all they had, he thought to himself again. He almost changed his mind, right then.

But he couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t. All this time he’d been desperate to get back home, even if that did seem to be a riot zone. He didn’t feel safe here, as paradoxical as that seemed. 

The ride to the train station was silent. The roads were empty, and for once Harry seemed to be driving well.

The train station was empty as well, yet John could see trains pulling up. Apparently it was still in the early stages of the apocalypse, where everything still seemed to go on as usual.

John limped out of the car, and grabbed his suitcase from the boot. He moved to say goodbye to Harry, when she grabbed him and enveloped him in a tight hug, sobbing against his chest.

“Call me every night,” she whispered shakily. “I don’t want to lose you…”

“I promise,” John said, giving her a sad smile. “Every night.”

But they both knew it was a lie. They both knew this would be the last they would ever see of each other.


	6. Hounds

At first it had been normal, or at least as normal is anarchy could be. People still went to jobs, infrastructure remained steady, although everyone was jumpy, nervous. There were no longer any lunch dates, or meeting up with friends, for good reason. Crime increased almost tenfold in the first month, and there were regular riots. But society still seemed to prevail.

Then slowly, it all crumbled. It happened so subtly no one seemed to notice until it was all gone. The police had disappeared, the few government officials still around were silenced, whether to an assassination or running away, no one knew. Petrol stopped being imported, currency slowly fell to nothing, and everything was _gone_.

To John, it was no longer London. It couldn’t be London. To him, London was his youth, full of pretty girls and alcohol and laughter. Even when he had returned with a limp and PTSD, The streets were always alive, full of people.

Now, they were dead, completely empty.

 Most of everyone had left, London and the country. Ella had left within a week, sending an email urging him to do the same. Almost all the doctors at the surgery had left, including Sarah.

Even his noisy next-door neighbours had left. He had talked to them for the first time as they were loading up a cab, and only realized then how strange it was to never speak to someone who lived so close.

“Where are you going to go?” John asked, furrowing his eyebrows and leaning on his cane.

“Back to Iran!” the man said, as if it were obvious, stroking his beard worriedly. “Better there than here.”

John had opened his mouth, about to say something, maybe wish them luck, or suggest trying to be quieter during sex in their new life, or maybe something completely different, but the man’s wife pulled him into the car and they had sped off down the street before he could.

But John stayed. He stayed because he wasn’t sure what else to do.

            ~

Sometimes it seemed like this couldn’t happen...England could not fall to anarchy, not with the world watching, could it? Someone had to help, America had to help, or France, or even China...

 But there were rumors that those civilizations had collapsed as well. A few articles had claimed so, before the printing presses were abandoned, but by then almost all news was speculation.

Whatever the case, no one came to save them. And chaos ruled now.

            ~

When John’s landlord left, leaving the building unlocked during the entire day, John simply moved into the now abandoned surgery. People needed a doctor, after all, and here he could provide a bit of shelter for a few families, in the limited rooms. The small building wasn’t as safe as it had been when there were still security companies, and was still dangerous, but it was better than living on the street, and so far no one had forced their way in.

It was nice, somewhat. The rent was free, and there was a sense of family around everyone, even if the world as they knew it was crumbling beneath their feet.

            ~

 It was foggy, the day it happened. Foggier than usual, that’s what John first noticed.

 He had slept in, as he often did nowadays. It was eleven when he’d gotten up, yet the room was still dark, which is what led to his initial confusion. He sat up on his mattress,  staring out the windows for a good three minutes, unable to comprehend quite what was going on.

Stepping out into the hall, still in his pyjamas and a semi-conscious state of mind, John stumbled and looked around for another one of the “tenants”, as if expecting one of them to have an answer.

“It’s dark outside,” he said, when he’d finally ran into Mary, a blonde woman who in her past life had been a nurse.  

“Yeah, it is,” she replied, nodding and glancing out the window behind her. “Fog, I guess. Glad I’m not doing the milk run today, looks rather cold too.” She shrugged and continued to walk down the hall.

It took John a few moments of watching her leave to remember suddenly that it was _his_ turn to get the milk. He cursed under his breath, making his way back to his room. She was probably right, it was going to be extremely cold today.

He begrudgingly packed on his warmest trousers and jacket, stuffed some coins into his pocket (paper money had lost its value with the collapse, but they had not stooped so low as to bargain teeth and clothes yet) grabbed his cane, and marched determinedly towards the door, ready to get this over with.

Upon reaching and unlocking the front door, John braced himself for the damp cold that would be expected in such a frigid fog,making him rather surprised when the weather proved to actually be quite agreeable, warm with a slight wind.

He frowned, and looked about in confusion. It was so dark out that he couldn’t see his feet, how was it _warm_?

Shaking his head, John continued on, walking in the direction where he hoped the grocery was, trudging through the fog blindly for quite a few minutes, when a strange feeling began to sink in.

At first, it was paranoia, feeling as though someone was watching him. His soldier instincts kicking in, John turned behind him in a defence stance, before remembering that he wouldn’t be able to see anyone anyway.

Then, his heart began to pound, and a fluttering panic rose up in his chest. John took a step back, trying to keep his breathing steady. He’d never had a panic attack on the street before, what was happening?

He fell to his knees, the sand crunching beneath him.

Sand? Why was there sand? He was in London, not Afghanistan--

No, oh God, but there was the burning sun, he was gasping for breath, choking on the merciless heat.

John whimpered, and tried to look around wildly. As he moved his head, the scene changed from the London afternoon to the hot, Afghan morning. He struggled to stand up, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, and his panic raging through him.

He was about to run, run away from this horrible vision, whatever it was, when something moved out of the corner of his eye.

John slowed, blinking as a man dressed in combat uniform, and a gas mask, approached him. He was holding a gun, drawing John’s attention to his hands, which had scars, a deep, ragged one running from the thenar up their wrist, and further into his sleeved coat.

Wait. He remembered this. He remembered that hand, he remembered this day!

This was the day he was shot. Friendly fire, by a man whose name he couldn’t remember, he could only think of the scars, and--

The man loomed over him now, and took off his mask, revealing nothing but shining, cold, bright blue eyes.

John screamed, and threw desperate punches at the man. He wasn’t about to let this happen again!

It all was futile, though, the soldier seemed to pay no mind, only moving forward, to wrap his arms around John’s torso. At this, John started to claw at the empty face, whimpering as the man forced him to move forward, into what seemed like an empty storehouse.

John continued his attack, kicking and flailing, even when he was forced into a chair and held there.

The man reached for something out of John’s reach, and pulled out a syringe, full of an unknown serum.

John screamed again, and resumed his kicking. “ _Don’t fucking hurt me, I have nothing to give you son of a bitch just let me go I don’t know what you want from me you already took my leg and my shoulder fuck!_ ” he shrieked, before a hand was placed on his mouth, and a knee sharply into his stomach, causing all the air to ‘woosh’ out of him, leaving him breathless for just a moment.

 In that small moment, the man grabbed John’s arm, which somehow in his panic had had the sleeve rolled up, a rubber band tied tightly around it, and jabbed the syringe into John’s vein, causing him to cry out and squirm again.

But, it was too late, the serum had already been put into his bloodstream, and John suddenly felt very weak. The world began to spin, his heart rate slowed, and the last thing he saw before the darkness set in was the blank faced man took off his mask, and shaking out long, brunette hair.

 ~

When he came to, John felt sore, and incredibly feverish. He groaned, shaking his head at the horrible dream he’d had. He’d never remembered the cold dreams being _that_ real.

Upon looking up, however, he saw the Mousy Woman, sitting at a table, wearing a clean-room suit, pressing cotton swabs to her cheek, which, upon looking, was slightly bloodied. Probably from him, he realised, looking down at his torn fingernails. He had thought she was the man who’d shot him...

“Erm, sorry about that...” he murmured, trying to remember what had happened. The man who shot him was there...But he’d scratched _her_...What the hell was happening?

The woman shook her head, smiling rather forcefully as she put the cotton swab down. “It hardly broke skin… And you were hallucinating, regardless. It’s in the fog, some gas that makes you see your greatest fear.”

John blinked. “Fear gas? Like Batman?” he asked.

She looked confused for a moment. “I...Yes, sure, like Batman.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Bob Frankland,” she said slowly. “He’s...Or, he was, a doctor at Baskerville. He had this dangerous gas, saving it up, I guess, for whatever reason, and after, erm, the government fell, I guess he decided to test it on the remaining population of London.”

John stared at her. “...Why? And how did you know? And, why am I okay now?”

“I gave you the antidote,” she said simply, ignoring his first two questions. “But, everyone else...” She trailed off. Almost as if on cue, there was a sharp shriek from outside, one full of anguish and fear.

John jumped, and on instinct jumped up to try to help whoever it was.

The woman grabbed his arm and pulled him back in his chair, holding him down. “Don’t. You cannot do anything, she’ll see you as some monster, and kill you. You know what frightened humans are capable of.”

“What’s happening?” he asked softly. “Why is this all happening? Why do I keep seeing you?”

“I told you...You were supposed to meet him...Sherlock Holmes, but you didn’t.” There was a look of sadness on her face, the one a grieving friend or lover had.

“But that doesn’t make sense!” John insisted. “How was I supposed to meet him if I didn’t?”

She frowned. “I don’t know. But, if you had...All of this would have been different.”

“How? I’m not - I’m not special! I’m just ordinary!” John protested, hiding his head in his hands, feeling strangely calm, even through his panicked thoughts. The antidote still was active, he figured.

“You’re wrong,” the woman stated, shaking her head sharply. “You aren’t ordinary, not at all. You saved him, kept him going, even when I couldn’t. He adored you.”

John wrung his hands together, but did not say anything. Normally he’d be terrified, scared out of his mind at what she was saying, or at least disbelieving, incredulous. But, being stoned out of his mind with this anti-fear thing, he was only confused.

He was about to ask if he could take some of the serum home, for recreational use, when the woman spoke again.

“You can still save this,” she said, softer than before, looking nervous. “You can save this place.”

“How?” John shook his head. “How the hell can I _save_ this...hellhole?”

She remained silent again, only looking at him with her wide, sad eyes, almost seeming to pity him, although not in the condescending way he was used to. He shrank away from her gaze, hating the intensity of it.

“...What do I do, then? I have to get back to the clinic, and I haven’t gotten the milk, and other people might go out, I’m responsible for them and--”

“They won’t go outside, why would they, with a dark fog and the doctor missing? They’re smart, and have adapted to this place. Stay here, and wait for it to dissipate. Someone may attack you if you go outside now.”

John swallowed, and glancd up to her again. “And what do I do in the meantime?”

“You can sleep, you haven’t had a good night for quite a while, judging by the circles under your eyes.”

John blinked in surprise at her noticing that. “And if I don’t want to sleep?”

“Then you can listen to me,” she stated, leaning in on her elbows and looking seriously at him. “This is not going to get better. I’m sure you know that by now. London is only going to get worse. And by that, I mean that in a few months, you’ll be missing this.

“Something is happening… I don’t quite know yet, but something big is coming. A lot of people are going to die.”

John stared at her, opening his mouth, but she silenced him again.

“You want to help. Of course you do, you’re a doctor, it’s in your nature,” she bit her lip. “And you can. You can save them, you can save everyone.”

“How?” John immediately asked, sitting forward, staring at her. “Tell me!”

She only shook her head. “It’s a sacrifice, the largest one. You can save them, but at the price of your own life.”

John stared at her, looking to see if she was joking, before scoffing. She stared at him, and he had to laugh. “Really? I save everyone, and lose my life? Where do I sign up?” He kept laughing.

She frowned at him. “John. This is serious. People count on you, John. You may not realise it, but you are extremely important. You cannot throw your life away, not just with a thought.”

John shook his head wildly. “You said people will die! I can’t just let them die, I’m not that important, not when I can save--”

“John.” She almost looked angry now. “Think. Ask if you truly are ready to sacrifice everything. And don’t decide just because you’re depressed; you wouldn’t let a patient decide something on that rationale. Really _think_.”

She paused, and John looked down, not wanting to see her right now.

“And when I see you next, You can give me your answer.”

Then she stood up, and gave him a sad smile, before walking away. John couldn’t see where she went, and a sudden feeling of exhaustion washed over him.

 _When I see you next_. That phrase sent shivers down John’s spine. Each time he saw her, there was always some disaster, which escalated each time she appeared, as if she were some sort of banshee. The thought of something worse made John nauseous, even through the anti-fear drugs. But he couldn’t think of it long, because the exhaustion was growing heavy on him, and he found himself shutting his eyes, and everything drifting to darkness.

Some time later, he jolted awake, breathless and covered in sweat, as if he’d just broken a fever. He glanced around the warehouse, now seeing how bare and ominous it looked; only one bare light lit the entire room. He was alone.

Without the drug in his system any longer, the creeping feeling of nervousness and prey-like caution was back, something that was only intensified by this empty room.

He let out a shaky breath, trying to get his bearings. The Mousy Woman was gone, which had to mean the fog had lifted… Right? Given that she seemed to be John’s protector, in some strange convoluted sense, she would not leave him to die here.

Still, he creeped to the door, and peeked out nervously. The streets were dark now, but there was no feeling of fog. He stepped out carefully, keeping alert for any crazed person to attack him. Thankfully, no one did, although John still kept on his toes as he walked.

It took him five whole minutes of walking before he realised he actually didn’t know where he was. There were no streetlights, and he couldn’t even think of how far away he could be. There was nothing more he could do, however, other than continue to walk, until he could find some discernable landmark, all the while the words, _Are you truly ready to sacrifice everything?_ ran through his head.

It took him at least an hour to find his way back. When he did, there were dozens of people who had been hurt, but luckily none from the clinic (the woman had been right about that… They’d taken John for dead, and had stayed shut up). It took another several hours to help everyone that he could, although there was so little he could do now. By the time he finally made his way back to his room, it was almost dawn once more.

It wasn’t until he moved to sit down on his mattress that he suddenly remembered the shooting pain through his leg, and that he had dropped his cane in his terrored frenzy, leaving him effectively crippled, and effectively useless.


	7. Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for delay! I moved, and started a new school, so there was a lot of getting used to new things and general business. Thanks everyone for being patient (all ten of you)

_Are you truly ready to sacrifice everything?_

Of course he was, wasn’t he? He’d gone to Afghanistan, for chrissake, knowing fully that he may die. He stayed in London after it had fallen, knowing full well that he may die, or worse.

Besides, what else did he have left to sacrifice?

“John!” he heard someone yell, making him jump out of his skin, and ponderings, and back at the receptionist desk in the old waiting room. He looked up with wide eyes at Mary, who was frowning at him.

“Mmm, sorry, what?” he asked.

“Are you alright?” she asked, crossing her arms and looking concerned.

“Yeah, of course. Just ah...got lost in my thoughts,” John said, hoping he sounded convincing.

“Are you sure?” she continued, leaning down to look over him, getting a bit too close for John’s comfort. He drew away from her, eyeing her warily..

“Yes, I am, I promise,” he said, rushed. He gave her a quick grimace. She seemed to get the message, and drew away, her face a bit more flushed now as she stepped out of the room.

John felt like shit for that. He knew Mary was sweet and flirtatious, and in any other world he would have been interested in her as well. She was gorgeous, smart, funny… Hell, he probably would have wanted to marry her.

But now… Well, his libido had died along with his leg back in Afghanistan, and his depression had killed any other romantic urges he might have felt.

Besides, it felt wrong, to be in love while the world was ending. That, and he hadn’t any idea where any form of birth control was nowadays.

With a small, deflated sigh John got to his feet once more, wincing as he stepped on his bad foot. They’d never found his cane after the fog, three months ago, and the makeshift walking sticks he’d used were of minimal help, at best.

_Are you truly ready to sacrifice everything?_

He sighed, and tended to the girl that was sitting down in a chair, holding out an arm covered in blood, staring up at him with wide, scared eyes. She flinched when he approached, looking past him, as if something evil was right behind his shoulder. John tried to ignore it, as he had much bigger things to worry about.

Like when he went to the supply closet that morning, which used to be an entire room full of supplies, he found that more than half of the medications and tools were already gone.

They soon would be absolutely useless, against the coming apocalypse. And the thought terrified him, more than anything else he’d seen.

~

It was that night that the television went on. For the first time in months, John was awoken by the familiar buzzing and talking of a television. He got up, and limped down the hall as fast as he could, where there was already a small crowd forming in the lobby, where the big screen telly still was. They had not been able to sell it, as no one needed a television when nothing was on. They had never even unplugged it.

There was a man on the television. He had dark hair, and was wearing a crown, and he was smiling at the camera.

Everyone looked at each other in confusion. How was there a man on the telly? All broadcast stations had been shut down long ago.

Everyone then huddled around the television, staring at this strange miracle.

“Is it recording?” the man said, in a playful voice, that sounded so sinister that John shuddered violently and had to take a step back.

“Ah! Good!” he continued, smiling a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Hello, remaining citizens of London! You’re probably wondering, ‘how is this man on the telly?’” he sounded even more terrifying and high pitched when he was mocking. “And, well, I can’t tell you that. That’d just ruin the fun, wouldn’t it?

“What I _can_ tell you, though, is that there’s going to be some changes!” His entire face lit up, except for his eyes, which still remained dark and cold.

“But, oh, where are my manners?” he put his hand to his lips, as if he’d just been caught chewing with his mouth open. “I’m James Moriarty, I’m your new...well, king!” He gestured to the crown atop his head.

“King?” he heard someone exclaim behind him, incredulous.

“Well, if any of you guys have any better ideas,” Moriarty said, as if he could hear what was being said. “But really, it worked pretty well before, and we all know the current system is absolute shit. Do you really want a repeat of that fear fog?”

Everyone was silent. John could feel his heart pound, panic rising up in his throat.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, fiddling with a scepter. “Anyway, as I was saying, there are going to be some _regime_ changes.

“For starters, there is still _entirely_ too many people. I don’t understand it, personally. How many people would stay in a bloody city on the edge of a collapsing civilisation, even after a fog tries to kill all of you.” He rolled his eyes dramatically. “Anyway, being that there really is _much_ too many of you, and I’m _much_ too bored, I am decreeing that any and all citizens of London, if found, are liable to be taken to me, for... _fun_.” God, the accented last word almost made John pass out with fright.

“What does that mean, you ask? Well, it’s really rather simple. If I see you on the street, and I am bored, then I am able to pick you up, take you from wherever you are, and do whatever I like with you.” The sinister smile returned. “That is all, thank you, my darling subjects.” He blew a kiss at the camera, and a moment later the static was back.

Then silence.

“Holy shit...” John breathed, noticing that he had been holding his breath during that entire thing.

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then everyone erupted into terrified chatter, all their voices deathly quiet, in case there was someone outside.

“Board up the windows--”

“Get some weapons--”

“How are we supposed to live?”

John could not remember what happened immediately after that. He supposed everyone was too tired and frightened to stay, and so they all eventually crept back into their rooms. He couldn’t even remember falling asleep, only waking up.

~

If life was terrifying before, it was nothing compared to the fear they all had to deal with now.

No one would go outside unless it was absolutely necessary, and then they would carry mace and a shotgun with them.

Even with those precautions, they had already lost someone. A young girl, John couldn’t remember her name, only that she was very young, and had crooked teeth. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. One day she went to get the groceries, and she never returned. No one who was taken ever returned.

There were rumours, of course. Of torture chambers, bloodied weapons that were never cleaned even after a victim, they just kept sawing away, of rooms where they would keep a few people, and test them, twisted experiments that made Mengele sound like a kindly nurse.

They wouldn’t take patients anymore. It was too dangerous. The chance of them being spies, someone from Moriarty to snatch them all away was too great, and so the doors were shut.

John had lost count of days. It was better to not know what day it was, not to know how long they had been living under the ‘regime’ of James Moriarty. The days were only counted as how long until someone had to go and get food, or water.

The cabin fever was horrible. Everyone was already on edge, the added fact of being cooped up with ten other people made things just that much worse.

It was even worse for John, who, on the account of his leg, was never allowed to go out. Everyone knew he would not be able to outrun any gangs that tried to kidnap him, but had seemed to forget that he had also been a soldier, and had the best shot out of any of them. It made him feel like a damn child, grounded in his house. Every time someone was volunteered to go out, he could feel himself steaming, anger almost boiling over, but never completely.

Until one night, when John just snapped.

It was late, at least midnight. Everyone was asleep, except for him. He was in the lobby, staring longingly out the small space of the window that was still uncovered by the boards.

“John, you should get back,” he heard someone say behind him. He turned to see Mary standing, looking at him concernedly. “It isn’t safe.”

He knew she was right, of course. Standing anywhere near an opening could alert someone that a building was inhabited, and put everyone in danger.

But he really was much too far gone to listen to reason.

“I’m fine!” he snapped back. “If I see someone coming, I’ll just step back!”

Mary jumped, obviously not expecting that. “I...John, please, there’s nothing to see anyway. Just come back...”

“Maybe for you!” John gripped his hands at his sides, trying to fight the tears that were threatening to fall. “You go out! Everyone gets to go out, except for me, because you think I’m weak!” He gnashed his teeth together.

“We don’t want you hurt! You saw what happened to Jane--”

“No, I didn’t, because _I can’t fucking go out!_ ”

“It’s, please, John, you’re loud, we need to--”

“Fuck you!”

It was almost like a lovers’ quarrel, one of them so full of compassion and love, with the other was bristling with anger and hatred. Only there would be no make ups, no apologetic sex. It was just this.

Mary was silent for a moment, her mouth quivering in confusion and fright. “Please, John...” she begged.

God, he hated how desperate she sounded. Why the hell should he listen to her? Why should he listen to any of them?

And with that, the anger, the pain, everything that had been bottled up inside of John for the past year and a half, completely exploded.

“No! Godammit, I’m not a fucking kid anymore! I can do what I want, when I want, and it doesn’t matter what you all think!” His blood was possibly boiling, he felt unbelievably hot, and the trapped feeling was just becoming louder. “I’m going out.”

“ _Out_?!” Mary squeaked. John could just see her mouth fall open, as he undid every goddamn bolt that jammed the door shut. “You can’t go _out_ , John! They’ll kill you!” Yet she made no move to stop him.

“And I really don’t care,” John retorted, finally throwing the door open, and shutting it as hard as he could as he walked out.

It only took a few steps before John’s leg started to throb in the cold, and he realised what a mistake he’d just made. It was dark, John could barely see in front of him. If someone came by to kidnap him, he’d have no defences. But John continued on, mostly out of stubbornness than anything else, not wanting to face Mary, or anyone else, not yet. Better die than have to admit he was wrong.

He wasn’t sure how long it had been, but given how much his leg was paining him by now, he figured it to have been at least five minutes. The pain only made him more upset, which made him walk faster, which made the pain more prominent, and so on. He was about to give up completely on this damned venture and swallow his pride, when he heard shouts.

His soldier training never really gone, John immediately dove for cover, which, in the darkness, was anywhere.

Within moments, a harsh light was turned on, from across the street, coming from two large army trucks. Three men emerged. John shrank against the wall, holding his breath and praying that they would not notice him.

They didn’t, and for a single moment John let out a relieved breath. The men (they were, about average build, but very sturdy. John could take one on, most likely, but definitely not the three of them) seemed to be more interested in the side street than the cowering man across the way, and a moment later John knew why.

There was a scream, and John watched as a couple was dragged out into the street. A boy and a girl, who both struggled helplessly against their captors.

Oh, God, they seemed so young...They had to still be teenagers, they looked like they were just children.

John couldn’t do anything but stare in terror as the couple was dragged out. He did not dare shout, or even breathe.

The men were handcuffing the kids, and one shoved the girl towards the truck behind, another shoving the boy to the other truck. The boy resisted, and shouted something to the girl, something John could not catch, before the third man pulled out a gun, and shot the boy three times, just like that.

John flinched and held himself against the wall, and shut his eyes tight, although he could still hear the bullets piercing the boy, and the horrid _thump_ of his body hitting the floor.

The girl screamed again, but she was silenced, and as John dared to open an eye, she was gone, locked up in the truck. The men boarded both of the trucks, turned off the search light, and left, as if they had just done a street clean up, leaving the broken body of the boy behind.

John stood still for a long, painful moment in the dark, waiting for his eyesight to adjust, and for his breathing to get back to normal.

After several minutes, John forced himself to stand shakily, and walk to where the body lay, crouching down to the boy’s face, staring at his youth.

They were kids. They had been kids, dammit. At their age, they were supposed to be worrying about breaking curfew or condoms, not getting gunned down in the street. And now they were dead, or were about to be. He was probably the lucky one, gunshot wounds were relatively painless, compared to whatever Moriarty had in store for the girl.

John reached down to close the boy’s eyes, muttering “ashes to ashes” before standing up, and shuffling back towards the clinic, feeling more numb since he had come home from Afghanistan.

He turned a corner, and suddenly she was there. Standing expectantly, her hands in her pockets, watching as he approached. He wasn’t even surprised, anymore.

John picked up his pace, and stopped directly in front of her.

“Yes.” Was all he said.

She nodded, and turned to walk away, and John followed blindly.

~

John had no idea how long they walked. He felt as if it had been hours, but the night sky still remained stubbornly dark. The woman never slowed, or even looked to see if he was still following. Perhaps she knew that he would, that he would dare not leave, not now.

Just as John was about to break the silence to ask where the hell they were going, the woman finally slowed, and stepped up to a dark door, to some flat. She unlocked the door, and stepped in, turning back and nodding to John to come in as well.

John followed her, stepping into the house, looking over the door as he did. ‘221B’ it read. The sudden warmth of the building was a welcome change from the frigid outside, he thought. He had almost gone numb by now.

“So, do you live here, then...?” he asked stupidly, walking down the hall after the woman.

She gave him a strange look. “No,” she said. “Of course not.” She turned back and began up the stairs, leaving John to scramble to catch up to her.

“Um, why are we here, then?” John asked, frowning.

Here, the woman stopped again, and turned to John with a small smile on her face. “We’re sending you back,” she said.

“...Back?” John asked, feeling incredibly confused. “Back where?”

“Do you believe in time travel, John?” the woman asked instead.

“I...What? No. Of course not.” John stared at her.

“Then you’ll have a rather big surprise,” the woman said with a small smile, starting up the stairs again.

John blinked, taken aback. What the hell did that mean? He opened his mouth to question her, but he saw that she was at the top of the stairs, and heading out of his sight. He rushed up, stepping into the doorway she had, about to ask her what she had meant, before stopping, his mouth hanging open in shock.

The living room was absolutely bare, spare a large, circular contraption that John had never seen before. It was huge, a mechanical archway that John could walk through, large tubes and wires surrounded it. He stared at it, not understanding at all, and saw the mousy haired woman leaning against the wall, waiting for him to calm down.

“What is that?” John finally breathed.

“A time machine,” she said casually. “Just like I said.”

John stared at her. “How...”

“I told you. We’re sending you back.”

“Back _where_?” John asked again.

“To when you meet Sherlock Holmes.”

John blinked. “I...I don’t understand. You keep saying that I was supposed to meet him...But how? How was I supposed to meet him if I didn’t..? _And why does everyone stare at my back?!_ ” he added the last part as he saw her look pointedly behind him, in disgusted wonder, just as everyone else had.

The woman frowned, still keeping an eye on his back, as if she did not trust it. “Would you like to see it?”

“What?” John asked, his voice suddenly very quiet. “See what?”

She only gave him a pitying look, and started towards another room, and John once again followed her, to a room that at some point may have been a bedroom, but now only held a circle of mirrors, all with what seemed to be spotlights connected to the tops of them.

He stared in awe at them, unable to think of what lengths the woman had gone through to create this, or how she was even able to get the _power_ to operate this.

John turned to her, and she nodded, directing him to stand in the middle of the circle. John did, his spine shuddering in fear, although he had no reason to be afraid...did he?

The woman walked to the door, flicked off a switch which made the entire room go dark, shrouding John in darkness for just a moment, before flicking on another switch which turned the spotlights on the mirrors on, leaving John blind for a second as he stared directly into one. He blinked and shook his head, turning to ask the woman what the hell she was doing, when he saw it out of the corner of his eye.

It was a bug.

It was on his back, he could see it in the mirrors. The reflections sent off thousands of images of him, at thousands of different angles, and he could see, clearly, a bug, clinging to his back.

He screamed, mostly in shock and disgust, jerking his hand back to try to grab at the thing, and grasped at thin air.

It looked like a beetle, the large extinct insects that were on exhibit in museums when John was a kid. His friends and he would point and stare at it, finding it fascinating to look at, and terrifying to think of alive.

How?!

“ _What the bloody hell is on my back?!_ ” John screamed, spinning around in circles, trying to see if at some angle, the hideous thing would disappear.

“I don’t actually know,” the woman said, shrugging. “I was never told.”

“ _You don’t know?!_ ” John yelled.

“Well--I know that it’s feeding on time. Your time, the time that’s changed,” she said, sounding worried.

“Get it off!!”

The woman turned off the spotlights of the mirror, leaving John once again in the darkness, his heart pounding, and his brain reeling.

A few moments later, the main light to the room came on, and John could see the woman leaning against the wall, looking at him sadly, before turning back to the living room.

“...What do I have to do?” John finally asked, as he stumbled into the doorway.

“On the twenty-ninth of January, you walked past the hospital,” she said. “You were supposed to go into the park, to meet Sherlock Holmes.” She began busying herself, opening a chest and looking through it, pulling out a watch, and a strange looking hand-held remote. “You have to go back to that day, and go to the park, to meet him.”

“...Why?”

She looked at him like he was the stupidest man on earth. “Because you two can stop all of this. He was a genius, and you were his best friend.”

John couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I’m not anyone’s best friend.”

“You were his,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed on him. “You two were inseparable. You made him better, and he made you better...Why do you think you can walk sometimes without your cane?”

John stopped, and stared at her in shock, suddenly remembering the pain in his leg, which now began to throb, right on cue. “How...”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, laughing nervously. “But he did. He was able to help you.”

John took a large breath, feeling suddenly very small in this room. “Who are you?” he asked quietly. She had never told him.

The woman paused, and looked as if she were in deep thought, trying to think of an answer to his question. “No one important,” she finally said, giving him a sad smile, before snapping out of whatever trance she had been in, handing him the watch.

“...If I go back, I save this whole world. None of this ever happens,” John murmured absently, more to himself than the woman, staring at the watch in his hand. “Everyone is safe, and alive. England still is.”

“Yes,” she said.

John took a deep breath, and steeled himself, just as he’d done thousands of times, before running headfirst into action.

It was crazy. A bug living on his back, feeding on changed time? A _time_ machine? This all was insane. If John had any ounce of sense left, he would run all the way back to the clinic, and never look back.

Yet, what choice did he have?

“What do I have to do?” he asked, looking up at her.

“You decide to go past the hospital at ten fifty-one AM,” she said, moving towards the machine, and pulled a lever which made it _whirr_ to life. “You need to go past the park, instead.” She took the watch from John, and pressed a few buttons on it, before handing it back.

“This will give you the time that you go back,” she continued, pointing at the watch. “Pay attention to it. If you miss the minute, then everything is lost. Do you understand?”

John nodded somberly, gritting his teeth and strapping the watch onto his wrist.

The woman guided him to the archway. “This world will no longer exist, you realise...Everyone you’ve met, seen here, they will not remember you,” John nodded again, and the woman continued, “and remember: Ten fifty-one.”

 John stepped to the centre of the archway, which was now almost shaking and roaring. He gripped his hands into fists at his sides, and looked at the woman, who was staring at him with an expression he could not read. His insides were turning inside and out, and he was more terrified than he could ever remember being, until he suddenly remembered something.

“You told me I had to sacrifice everything to do this!” he yelled above the din of the machine. “I thought you meant that I would die...But you meant this whole world would die! I’m sacrificing this world for a new one...Right?” He grinned and laughed at himself, until he saw the woman’s face change from unreadable, to the most sad he had ever seen her.

“I’m sorry.” was all she said, before pressing something on her remote, which created a loud screeching noise, a blast of white light, and John was gone.

~

John awoke to a blinding headache, the harsh cold of wind blowing through his thin jacket, the sun shining right in his eyes, and the sound of London traffic.

The last part made him lift his head in absolute wonder. It had been so long since he had heard that sound, motorcycles, and honking, and people yelling. God, it was like a symphony.

As he looked around, however, he realised he was on a roof of some kind. All he was able to see was the vents and the blue sky.

He crawled towards the edge of the roof, feeling confused. The woman had said to go back and change the past, hadn’t she? How was he supposed to do anything from a roof?

_Coffee shop, pharmaceutical building_ , he noted as he scanned the street. He must be at the top of St. Bart’s, then. Shit, he had to be three blocks down in--he looked at his watch, which read 10:48-- three minutes. In three minutes he was going to walk out of his therapist's building, and walk past the hospital, instead of the park.

He didn’t have time to rush out and stop himself, he thought as he got up shakily and made his way to the door. Someone would see him coming from the roof, would think him a suicide risk--

He froze as the realisation hit him. God, no, that couldn’t be it, he thought desperately, turning to stare past the edge of the building.

But it was. It was the only way.

_Oh, God, no._

Through his two years back in London, he had thought of suicide often, most every day. But now...Now it seemed wrong. He didn’t want to die, not now, not after everything that had happened. He gripped his head in worry, feeling a panic attack come on.

The woman’s words came back to him. “You were his best friend.”

_A friend_ , he thought, squaring his shoulders and taking a step closer to the edge. If he did this, he would have a friend. Someone there for him. He would not be alone.

He walked to the ledge, stepping up onto the brick ledge. His stomach dropped at the height, and he almost fell back.

_A friend, a friend._

He raised his hands up shakily, sneaking a glance to his watch once more.

10:49

He took a large breath, and shut his eyes tight.  _A friend_ .

Before he knew it, he was falling. His stomach lurched, his limbs grasped for solid ground, the wind roared in his ears, there was a rush of pressure, hitting the ground, a cracking sound, and a spiral of pain shot up his back, and the world turned off like a switch.

~

_After his therapist sessions, John always went one of two directions: A small park, which was about two blocks straight from the office, or past the main hospital building. The calm, tranquil peace of the park helped him reel down from all the frustration everything had been causing him, while St. Bart’s brought him back to when he was young, and a student there, when he and his friends would try to pick up on the nurses, and cheat off each other’s exams, when things were better._

_He strode out of the building, and glanced at his watch. 10:51, on the dot. Very strange._

_He paused for a moment, deciding which way he should go today, when he noticed a large commotion by the main building to St. Bart’s. He limped a few steps closer._

_“Uh, excuse me,” he said, to a man in scrubs rushing past him. “What’s happening here?”_

_“Some bloke just jumped off the bloody building!” the man exclaimed, skidding to a halt for just a moment. “No one saw him go up, they just found him on the bloody ground!” And with that he was off._

_John shivered. He didn’t have have_ that _strong of a desire to see death again._

_Park it was, then._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more chapter, which will be more of a short epilogue than anything. Thanks everyone for staying on board, everyone has been wonderful :)


	8. Epilogue

“John!”

The sound echoed in his ears, but didn’t quite register in his mind. Someone was calling his name, someone was shaking him.

“John!” The sound came again, and suddenly everything seemed incredibly in focus.

Sherlock was shaking him and shouting his name and oh God his head fucking hurt.

“Sh’lock,” he mumbled, his eyes fluttering open and weakly trying to bat Sherlock’s arms away. He was in a tent, some sort of carnival tent.

“John, are you alright?” Sherlock asked, his voice more breathless, as if he had been running. He was no longer shaking him, but still holding him in an awkward sitting position. His eyes were darting about nervously, glancing up and down John.

“I...Yeah, I think so,” John mumbled, grabbing his head with his hand, moaning at the pain. “What the hell happened? I can remember some woman grabbing me, and saying something weird, but the rest is rather fuzzy.”

Sherlock frowned, and touched a gloved finger to John’s head, as if checking for bumps or any other noticeable injuries. John flinched, more in surprise than anything. The detective’s eyebrows furrowed in concern, and his eyes wandered from John’s face to the abandoned table, which seemed disheveled, like someone had tripped over the table cloth before bolting. John followed his gaze, and yelped at the sight of a large dark beetle lying on its back on top of the table.

“It’s dead,” Sherlock said, standing up to poke at the abdomen of the thing, as if proving his point. He glanced to John, who still sat on the ground, a strange look of concern still on his face. “You were unconscious, on the ground, with that thing on your back, parasitizing you.” His nose crinkled up in something like distaste, or anger. “The palm-reader ran as soon as I arrived, I had no time to chase after her.”

“What? She-- Oh. Too bad, I wanted to--Wait.” John stopped, and furrowed his eyebrows. “How did you know I was here?”

Sherlock smiled innocently.

John gave an exasperated sigh. “Sherlock, do you follow me everywhere?”

“Obviously not a native species,” Sherlock said, turning back to the beetle and ignoring John’s question. “What would the role of a  parasitic beetle be, in a fortune teller’s tent? Why would it be here--Oh.” His eyes lit up with realisation. “It feeds on futures, then/ How clever. Couldn’t just be futures in general, though, that would mean it could just latch onto anyone walking down the street...People come in here, and tell their past, to get a taste of their--Of course. It changes the future. Feeds on the change of energy, the change of events.”

John blinked. That reminded him of something… A dream, of someone saying something similar, something changing events.

With that, the dream slowly came back to him, although it still refused to focus on any details.

“What did it change?” Sherlock asked, suddenly incredibly close again. John jumped back, and pushed on Sherlock’s chest to give him some space, before standing up shakily.

“Um… I don’t quite know, I can’t quite remember,” he murmured, putting a hand to his head and shutting his eyes, trying to think. An image flashed by, a dark sleeve, shrouded in the white of a hospital stretcher. “... You were dead.”

Sherlock’s eyebrows went up in surprise.

“You were dead, we hadn’t met, you died before I could meet you… And the government toppled,” John murmured, opening his eyes to look over at Sherlock with a small scoff. “God, you’re an arrogant sod, even when you’re in my dreams and dead.”

Sherlock was silent for quite a few moments. “It wasn’t a dream,” he finally said. “I told you, the beetle creates an alternate universe, one where an important detail is changed in a person’s life, and so their future is changed. In your case, I die before we can meet, meaning that cases we solve together are never solved. We worked some high profile cases, thanks to your blog, so at any point one of them could have resulted in the government failing.”

“... An alternate universe? What?” John asked incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”

“Of course I am, John,” Sherlock said, giving him an insulted glance. “There’s quite a bit of evidence that they exist, and certainly none that they don’t. It’s the most plausible explanation, unless you believe that your subconscious was able to create a dream world with that amount of precision.

“The more pressing question, is, how did you get back to this current universe? It would require a near infinite amount of energy to jump from one universe to another.”

John paused, this flux of information partially stunning him. “I don’t...” he closed his eyes to try to think again.

He could remember a woman running by, her eyes frantic and worried, along with an uncoordinated outfit. She was brunette, had a mousy look about her, and was rather meek.

“Molly,” he suddenly said. “Molly was there. I don’t know how, but she was there, and she was able to help me.”

Sherlock raised an incredulous eyebrow, the look on his face bordering on stupefied, until something seemed to occur to him, and his face lit up, and his entire body seemed to rock as if he’d just been shocked.

“Oh! Yes, of course!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands and grinning, before doubling back to where the deceased alternate-universe-beetle lay, picking it up and giving it an appreciative glance. “We should go, I will have to call Molly--Do you think we would be able to hail a cab with this?”

John sighed, and rubbed at his face. “God, Sherlock, I don’t know. Why do we have to call Molly? Shouldn’t we call, I don’t know, Lestrade? This certainly has to be illegal on some level.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, John. The police wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails from this crime scene. Besides, they’d take the insect, and God knows what they’d do with it.”

With that, Sherlock tossed the bug to John, who caught it with a disgusted shout, and busied himself with pulling out his mobile, and walking out of the tent. After dialing some number, he made a beckoning motion for John to follow, which he did, carrying the creepy dead bug in his arms and trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

“Molly?” Sherlock was saying into the receiver as they left the carnival. “Yes, I’m going to need a favour, you’re going to have to take the afternoon off, most likely, this will take a while… Are you still in contact with UNIT?”

John stared at him, uncomprehending as the other explained something to the pathologist through the phone, although nothing he said was making any sense.

“What are you talking about?” he asked finally, when the other had hung up the phone.

“Obviously, we need to get Molly to do whatever she did with you in the other universe,” Sherlock said simply, striding over to the street, then glancing back to the bug. “A cab probably won’t take us with that, will they?”

“No, likely not… Wait, Sherlock, what on earth are you going on about? How will it-- why?!”

“Because it already happened, John!” Sherlock insisted, turning to grin at John. “Don’t you see? Oh, this is so exciting… If only I could have been there!”

John still was only able to look at him dumbly, holding the dead bug and furrowing his eyebrows. “I still don’t…”

Sherlock finally stopped for a moment, and looked at John with a contemplating look. “I wouldn’t try to think about it, John. They’re quite complicated, even for me, far too complicated of things for people like you to really think about. Your little brains would pop.”

The half-thought insult made John scoff again, yet he still followed after the other to the tube station. There were plenty of strange, oddly familiar looks when John passed by on the stairs and the train with the dead beetle, but by now John was very used to getting those types of looks when being with Sherlock.

Also, despite Sherlock’s caveat, John still found himself thinking about what any of this meant, and trying to remember what exactly had happened in his dream. There wasn’t  much he could really bring back to his mind. Death. Fear. Chaos. And through it all, there was an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness, and being alone.

Finally, after several minutes of silence, he turned to Sherlock beside him, who was uncharacteristically quiet, leaning against the pole next to his seat and staring off into the distance, probably still working out this enormous puzzle in his head.

John cleared his throat. “Sherlock?” he asked. The other man snapped out of his trance, and turned his gaze to John’s with a small inquisitive hum.

“I just, ah…” John trailed off, trying to think of how to phrase this. “I’d like to say thank you. For, um, saving me.”

Sherlock’s brow furrowed in confusion. “It was just a matter of pulling a bug off your back--”

“No, I don’t mean now… Although that was appreciated too,” John smiled. “I mean… When we first met. You really saved me, from my nightmares, my fear, especially myself, and, I just realised I’ve never really thanked you for that. I don’t know what would have become of me if I hadn’t met you.”

The other still looked confused, but gave a smile after a moment. “Ah, well, you’re welcome, I suppose,” he said a bit awkwardly. “But I can hardly take all the credit. You managed to do quite a bit for me in those first few weeks as well. Apparently you even saved my life.”

That was certainly a surprise, John thought, unable to keep from matching Sherlock’s smile. He gave the other a small clap on the back, and squeezed his shoulder, hoping that the other caught his meaning.

Sherlock still looked a bit confused by this (a genius unphased by alternate universes, yet flabberghasted by small social norms), but reached a hand up to squeeze John’s shoulder in return.

“So, how did the world end without me?” he asked with a smirk. John just rolled his eyes and chuckled to himself, shaking his head.

“Always has to be about you, doesn’t it?” he asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Thanks for the ride, everyone. This was a lot of fun to imagine and write, I hope everyone else had fun too.  
> As per usual, any feedback whatsoever is highly appreciated.


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